Home Affairs chaos jeopardising birth registry

05 August 2014

According to a reply to a parliamentary question, 159 of the 389 online child registry systems in the country are not fully operational due to 134 experiencing IT-related challenges, 8 being delayed due to a lack in human resources, and 17 not functioning due to space allocation. 

In another reply, it was also revealed that a number of mobile departmental offices are not operational due to mechanical breakdown, damaged satellite services and generator faults. 

This is completely unacceptable considering that these are minor problems which should be quickly resolved in order to swiftly restore services. 

Regarding the child registry systems, the Department has said that these systems can only be restored when the IT network connection is re-established through an IT procurement process which can take up to 3 months. This is an unrealistic time period to solve a simple problem considering that South Africa experiences a number of births on a daily basis, all of which need to be recorded in order for the necessary documentation to be processed. Why is the Department not employing a manual process while the system is down?

The mobile departmental offices, of which many in the country are also down, can be restored to full operational capacity simply by replacing certain mechanical components and securing satellite access. What is the Department doing to resolve these minor issues? While these services are down, thousands of South Africans are denied necessary services from the Department of Home Affairs. 

Furthermore the Minister stated in his budget vote speech that "all applications for late registration of birth would go through an appeal and adjudication process." This is highly problematic considering that it does not make sense to penalise people for late registration of births if the Department cannot maintain a simple computer system at a hospital to register new births.

I will be raising these issues in the following Portfolio Committee Meeting on Home Affairs to find out what the department is doing to restore these essential facilities which are plagued by unnecessary delays in service.

Our citizens deserve better.

Statement issued by Haniff Hoosen MP, DA Shadow Minister of Home Affairs, August 5 2014

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